Friday, December 15, 2017

A Plea to All Adult Collectors

I don't usually use this blog to post my rants, but this one has to be said.

I've seen numerous people complaining about Mattel toys ever since EAH and MH made some more kid-friendly changes.

Well, now the same negativity is infecting DC Superhero Girls. It has been for awhile, but just yesterday, I read the most pompous load I have ever heard come out of a collector and I think a lot of people who constantly spout negativity think this same way.

DCSG is described as an action doll line. They're not fashion dolls. The majority do not have fabric clothing. The upcoming Hawkgirl doll has a yellow torso, not her skintone plus a fabric shirt. This is likely, as I've mentioned before, due to her wing mechanism. She has ENORMOUS plastic wings that will have to fit into her back somehow. A fabric shirt would have had to have a huge gap in the back to fit around the mechanism. I, for one, HATE that and think it was a wiser decision to make her easier to play with by going with the yellow torso.

Recently, a boxed photo of her was added to the Amazon listing and the new complaint from entitled adult collectors is that she "lost" the ribbing on her torso that made it look like a shirt.

That ribbing was never there. It was 'shopped in.

I personally think she looks plenty fine without it, but the whining on one Facebook page was ridiculous.

A father with some sense finally said this: "It's almost as if there are a bunch of people who don't understand that this is a toy meant for little girls who don't care the torso is all one color. My daughter will love it."

Bravo, Dad. Bravo.

You know what the line was that I had the most of as a kid?

She-Ra, Princess of Power.

Dolls with molded on and painted on clothing that had a fabric skirt and maybe a cape, but were meant for heavier action-based play than, say, Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake.

And I didn't care that I couldn't change their clothes. I cared about She-Ra fighting against Catra and many such battles took place in my yard, where fashion dolls would have gotten their fabric dresses dirty and lost tiny high heels. But not She-Ra and her friends! Because they were ACTION DOLLS.

If I could get that as a young child back in the 80s, why can't the twentysomethings get it now?

Now I've kept you waiting for the entitled comment that the smart father I quoted above received. It's a gem.

"Perhaps you don't understand that the doll market relies heavily on the adult collectors for sales support, and that without those sales none of this would get produced in the first place. All these dolls are aimed at adults, either collectors or parents. And most parents, like collectors, want to spend their money on good, quality products for their kids. To get value for their dollar. Clearly you don't understand how the doll market works, or who keeps it going. Thank adult collectors for supporting this line, so your little girl can get these."

Congratulations, buddy. I've been collecting for over thirty years and that is the most entitled, delusional garbage I have ever heard.

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat. While there are many adult doll collectors, NEVER EVER have the stupidity to think we constitute a significant portion of sales. We do not. Our purchases are a drop in the bucket.

So that negates the first nonsense statement.

Also, these dolls are not and never will be aimed at adults, so get that out of your mind, too. The only exceptions are the obvious ones like convention and Amazon collectors exclusives. Popular lines like Shoppies and LOL Surprise were not designed with adults in mind.

As for parents wanting quality for their money, that's another load. I'm currently in a Facebook group for popular toys so parents and others can help each other find what they need for fair prices. Those parents don't talk about quality. Their kids want what they want. They want tiny blind box toys where sometimes the rare pieces of itty bitty rubber sell for hundreds of dollars. They want multiple colors of the same electronic monkey that does the same thing as the other colors. They want squishy things and weird babies. They want LOLs whose rubber clothing doesn't even close fully in the back.

Then the idiot goes back to the delusion that adult collectors somehow keep the toy industry going and even has the audacity to tell a father that HE is the reason that the father's little girl can get what she wants.

It is disgusting.

It is fine to be an adult collector. I mean, obviously I think that. I'm 39 and I've been doing this for decades.

However, it is important to remember that with playline, these toys are not and will never be for you. They are not made for you. You do not provide enough sales to matter one little bit. If you did, we'd still have the original Monster High with loads of male dolls and even more detailed characters. Guess what. We don't.

Do not be like this guy. Do not sit so high on your horse that you think you matter at all to the toy companies. You don't. Lay off the negativity for once and let the kids enjoy what they've been looking forward to.

Buy Hawkgirl. Support action dolls. Understand the concept of action dolls. Support a Latina heroine! Support more dolls coming out in this line in the original design style!

Isn't that more important than a scrap of fabric that would have looked terrible on her anyway? If you don't think so, you're in the wrong collecting game. Go spend your money on Hot Toys and get out of here with your entitled, negative bull.

Yeah, this is ridiculous. It's okay to be disappointed by the changes or perhaps unconventional decisions a company makes. It's completely reasonable to feel a bit miffed when something changes and things are going in a different direction. Monster High is different now, and not in a good way for many. But to declare that you were the only people the dolls were made for when the truth is that you are actually the only people who really care about such things? Rubbish. These are kids' toys mostly bought by parents for their children, neither of whom could care less about the reboots or plastic clothes. Why can't adults be a peripheral group that enjoys a kids' franchise without becoming entitled and taking it for their own?

Exactly! There are certain times when it makes sense for adults to voice their opinions. For example, I'm not sure who was at fault, but the Star Darlings line was utterly botched when it should have been a gimme moneymaker with 12 distinct, diverse characters that each had at least 2 looks to be made into dolls. But that's different than complaining about certain features on dolls that are clearly aimed at a younger audience, like the MH reboot, or there for specific reasons like the DCSG designs. Like I think it's fine for anyone to complain about the perpetual appearance of Wonder Woman in DCSG lines when there's only 1 deluxe Bumblebee doll and you hardly ever see Katana, but complaining about Hawkgirl's torso and whining about cheapness and a decline in quality is silly.

I'm sure this has happened with other types of adult collectors before, but ever since Monster High, I've seen a drastic decline in the behavior of playline collectors. I love MH, but their articulation created a load of entitlement and the playline fandoms have only suffered for it since.